Rakoumel

We're delighted when we find somewhere agreeable to eat after a doctors visit or  shopping for spare parts in one of the big towns near us, not Athens.

After a number of disappointing meals in Nafplio we finally found the ideal hangout, and it's airconditioned in the summer.  Just a tiny place, half a dozen tables and another half dozen outside

Named 'Rakoumel" which is combination of the word 'raki' and 'Drakoumel'  the bumbling wizard who chases the Smurfs.  You know him and his cat as Gargamel and Azrael.  We know them as Drakoumel and Psipsinel and the Smurfs themselves are Stroumfakia.  The smurfs speak greek, even Donald Duck quacks in greek!  

We see the same faces almost everytime we walk in even though it is only a few times a year.  Locals, mainly men, retired, doing the shopping for wives cooking at home and then popping in for a glass of raki or wine and some familiar company

This long haired male, a throwback from the seventies, is a friend of the owner and sits by the bar with a glass of iced coffee and a full ashtray waiting for his friend to take a break.  Meanwhile he eyes up the waitress and checks us out as well 

Paper tablecloths with recipes enscribed on them, wine from a plastic barrel and only a small selection of dishes every day

We ordered chicken saganaki, bacaliaros and gkoulbasi....

Chicken in a tomato sauce with chunks of cheese and salt cod fried in a batter with garlic sauce.  The gkoulbasi was chunks pork cooked in a clay bowl with green peppers, chunks of cheese, tomato and onion,  slow cooked for three or more hours..  It was darn tasty, the perfect meze for a litre, or so, of wine

If the table is too small for all your plates then pull up another chair and use it as a side table. Standard practice

As usual there was a small altercation over who payed the bill.  We had invited our friend to join us so we paid for the meal.

And we shouted the waitress to a bottle of beer.   She poured out a glass and we clunked glasses

'Stin ygeia sas" to your good health